


Bedtime Stories

by Page161of180



Series: Nights and Mornings [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Oh look, communication can be hard, in defense (and love) of Eliot Waugh, no one's a villain, no one's perfect either, processing 4x12, the author is using stories as a metaphor once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 01:45:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Page161of180/pseuds/Page161of180
Summary: “Would you tell me a bedtime story?” he finally asked quietly, with heavy-lidded eyes, still staring at the television.Eliot’s heart throbbed. Are you asking because you miss me? Eliot wanted to ask. Or just because you’re still not okay and I make you feel better?And also: Is this what being brave means? That I don’t ask, and I just keep opening my heart to you, because I fucked up and didn’t choose you, and she had already given you the words you needed by the time I got free of the Monster that hurt you that you still won’t talk about?And: Does it mean I never point out that you never chose me, either, not really? Not in the ways that mean anything?





	Bedtime Stories

**Author's Note:**

> This story marks my attempt at processing the events of 4x12 and where (it appears to me) that the narrative of the show may be heading. Understanding that there's still another episode left of the season and that I have no idea where the writers will actually go, a few possibilities seem apparent. Quentin and Eliot's romantic relationship could simply be shelved, only to reappear in the fifth episode of each subsequent season-- which I don't think I have to say I'm not here for. Another possibility is that the story is setting up something of a triangle involving Quentin, Alice, and Eliot. I've read some takes on why a triangle like that would be good, because it would give Eliot the opportunity/responsibility to follow through on all his bravery plans and fight for Quentin. And if that take works for you, then have at; I have no doubt there are ways it could be done effectively. But the idea provoked a lot of unsettled and uncomfortable emotions in me, which I've been trying to process. The short version of all that processing is Eliot screwed up, but he's not the only one who needs to work communicating. The slightly longer version is this story.

 

 

1.

 

The question of bedtime stories, in their other life, had been surprisingly fraught.

 

 _Fillory_ , of course, had been categorically excluded as an option.

 

(When pressed on the point, Quentin would mutter about _the prime directive, El,_ most likely because that was the quickest way to get Eliot to roll his eyes and abandon the subject with an indulgent pat to the cheek. Eliot never _had_ perceived a need to press for more, when the shape of the truth was there behind Quentin’s eyes every time the land of his childhood imaginings rejected another perfectly goddamn beautiful design or sent whimsically named plagues to kill funny young wives and mothers. _Perhaps best to avoid bedtime stories written by known pedophiles_ , he’d say instead, because it would make Quentin cringe, and that was easier, somehow, than thinking too hard about how something that was colorful and cruel and warped by the bastards that had made it was such a towering disappointment in Quentin’s eyes.)

 

For a while, Quentin had stuck instead with Tolkien-- which had the benefit of being sufficiently long and winding, sufficiently the subject of an adolescent Quentin’s halting attempts at fanfiction, and sufficiently likely to induce six-year-old demands for whole-scene repeats (the talking trees were a _big_ hit, for reasons that were entirely beyond Eliot), that it lasted them years. It also had the benefit of being sufficiently about short furry people rooked into a dangerous quest by their big hearts that Eliot could justify saying as much while tucking a strand of Quentin’s hair behind his ear, or (when Teddy had already nodded off) murmuring as much while running a finger over a hairy arm, or (when Teddy dropped off the grandkids for a few days and they were sufficiently old and nostalgic that Eliot had finally dropped his guards some) outright cooing it with a hand against that scratchy old beard. Every time, Quentin would light up, just a little, even though he never cracked a smile.

 

In between all the Tolkien, Eliot had tried to pitch in. First with Buffy-- which quickly proved impossible to translate to a pre-industrial palette. Then, with stories of his own making-- which weren’t half bad, if he said so himself. A little heavy on the handsome woodcutters, etc., but fuck it. Quentin had his version of fantasy; Eliot could have his. The homebrews had only come to a (crashing) halt the night that Teddy, seven and already so perceptive, looked up at his Pop with his Dad’s eyes and said “I think King Stupid is lonely,” and Eliot had completely lost his place in the story ( _King Bambi already_ fought _the fairies, Papa!_ ) and eventually fell asleep with his arms around his own middle, working up the nerve to beg Quentin to scoot closer and hold him. (He didn’t. Neither of them did.)

 

It was shortly after that Quentin had resorted to the Potterverse. They’d been at the mosaic for a decade at that point.

 

(Quentin had told a new shopkeeper in the closest village the week before that they’d been _together_ for ten years; Eliot had corrected down to nine, which had only been to avoid a fight. He’d _wanted_ to say four and a half. He’d _wanted_ to say zero.)

 

A decade, however spent, was long enough to see that something about little Harry Potter in his cupboard under the stairs didn’t sit right with Eliot’s own Harry. It took a few nights, though, before Eliot properly recognized the discomfort as _jealousy_ . (In his defense, he’d spent so long pretending his _own_ jealousy was something other than it was, that the feeling had become equally difficulty to identify in anyone else.) But there it was-- in the way Quentin’s mouth curled just a little, dismissively, while his eyes went distant, every time he said it: _the chosen one_.

 

And Eliot had thought, helplessly, of a Quentin he’d never known, young and sad and knock-kneed and little. (For _some_ reason, Eliot never pictured Teddy, when he imagined what Quentin had looked like as a boy-- not even after Teddy had grown up into a smart and sweet-eyed man and eliminated any doubts that, on the surface at least, he and Quentin were just two different points on the same timeline. Well, for _one_ reason, actually: because Eliot couldn’t bear to imagine a child who looked like Teddy melancholy or scared or _lost_ .) He had thought of Little Quentin, with the brain he wouldn’t have realized yet that he couldn’t trust, and with the books he wouldn’t have realized yet that he _also_ couldn’t trust, and Eliot was torn. In half, very nearly. Because half of him wanted to fold Quentin in his arms and say it doesn’t matter that you’re middling-at-best at everything except hating yourself and giving head, you’re _my_ chosen one.

 

But the other half.

 

The other half wanted to say _you stupid little prick, you still think that shit_ matters.

  
  


2.

 

The sound of the penthouse door opening pulled Eliot from his memories. It was Quentin and Alice, coming back from-- dinner, maybe? They went on dates now, apparently. Eliot could offer theories as to why, and on whether Project We Are Grown Up Now And So Healthy This Time was working. But that would be petty and beneath the person he was trying to be and they were holding hands anyway, so. What exactly did being right get him?

 

(What had it ever?)

 

“Uh, hey.”

 

Quentin pulled up short when he saw Eliot (as he always did). Alice (as _she_ always did) held Quentin’s hand a little tighter and looked up into his tense, worried face from behind her thick glasses with so much deliberate effort at understanding that Eliot’s stomach turned.

 

“Hey yourself.”

 

“Are you-- looking for a book?” Alice piped up. As usual, she seemed to regret speaking as soon as Eliot’s attention turned to her, going by the way her eyes pinched together. Because he disgusted her? Because she _knew_ (because Quentin had told her) about his hands twisting together as he said _I know you’re with Alice now and if she makes you happy, then I’m happy for you, but I’m trying to be braver so you should know that I still love you. That’s all_ ? Because she was still (always) expecting the stupid, bitter asshole who’d called her an arrogant twat outside the Plover estate because he thought _that_ might make it hurt less (kill him less), hearing someone brave enough to want to try to change what couldn’t be changed?

 

Eliot just smiled, uneasy and (hopefully) unthreatening. “Looking for a bedtime story.”

 

It had been the wrong thing to say. Of course it had. Quentin had all the same memories that he did, no matter how much Quentin pretended that he didn’t (now). They were both thinking, suddenly, of the way that Teddy would waggle his feet back and forth beneath his blanket, at higher and higher speeds, even as he fell asleep. And while Eliot was thinking of Quentin’s eyes wide and his hands spread, doing all the voices, Quentin was probably thinking of the quick squeeze of Eliot’s fingers against the back of his neck, as Eliot brought laundry in from the line outside, one ear to the story the whole time.

 

(At least, that’s what Eliot thought-- _hoped_ \-- Quentin was thinking. Quentin didn’t ever say whether he thought about them, still. Whether the feelings that he’d felt had been snuffed out when Eliot snuffed their moment in the throne room. Or. Well. Whether Eliot had been right all along, and that moment in the throne room had just been nostalgia and Quentin’s never-ending quest to hear someone-- _anyone--_ say that they chose him.)

 

“We should, uh--” Quentin swung his and Alice’s joined hands out, toward their room. ( _Their room_.)

 

Eliot nodded and Alice grimaced (he thought she intended it to be a smile). Then Quentin and Alice walked to the room that was close enough to Eliot’s that he could hear them at night, quiet grunts and _c’mere, vix_ and otherwise entirely silent.

 

Eliot stayed in the main room, because while trying to figure out what constituted _bravery_ when the person one had failed to inform that they loved was making an honest go of it with their ex was an absolute _bitch_ , he had at least determined that it didn’t require outright masochism. He ran his fingers along the spines stacked on the bookshelf once more, before accepting that he hadn’t done _that_ much personal development, and made his way to the couch and the flat screen’s remote.

 

He had lost track of the time, flipping through channels on mute when Quentin walked back in, wearing flannel pants and a henley and the momentary unclench of his shoulders that meant he’d managed an O in the last fifteen minutes or so.

 

Eliot wondered, not for the first time, why exactly life was so bound and determined to punish him for a mistake that every one of his life experiences had primed him to make. _Including_ the ones with the person his mistake had hurt.

 

“Sorry. Is the TV bothering you?” Eliot asked, even though the TV was on mute, because it felt insufferable not to say anything, to just wait to see why Quentin was here and what Quentin wanted from him. Wasn’t he doing enough of that already? Hadn’t he always?

 

(That day in the village, when Quentin had said they’d been together ten years, and Eliot had said nine, and Eliot had _wanted_ to say a lot less than that. What Eliot had _really_ wanted to say was that, for four and a half years of the ten that Quentin claimed, it had been _Quentin and Arielle’s bed_ that Eliot was invited to share (sometimes), and _Quentin and Arielle’s child_ that Eliot had been invited to father ( _always_ ). And Eliot was still waiting to hear that there was no invitation necessary.)

 

Quentin shook his head and shuffled to the kitchen cabinets while Eliot worked hard not to scream. He came back to the living room with a box of some ungodly sugary cereal and sat down on the other section of the L-shaped couch.

 

“Is that Adventure Time?” he asked, around a handful of rainbow-coated corn munchies or whatever the fuck they were.

 

Eliot stopped flipping through channels and put the remote down. He didn’t unmute the TV, though, and Quentin didn’t ask him to.

 

“Hand those over,” he said after a moment, making gimme hands toward the offensively purple cereal box.

 

Quentin raised both eyebrows.

 

“Yes, the Monster has fucked with my once subtle and worldly palate irrevocably, now give them here.”

 

Eliot had worried that the mention of the Monster would erase the tentative outline of a smile that had been constructing itself across Quentin’s face, but it didn’t; it only made his jaw clench a little. Even still, Quentin managed to roll his eyes. He also scooched closer so that they could both reach into the cereal box. So now they had both done their part, at being Good Friends With Platonic Reasons To Sit Close Together While Watching Silent TV.

 

“Do you think Kady’s plan will work?” Quentin asked after a moment. “The worm thing, I mean?”

 

And Eliot allowed a theatrical shudder before giving a pithy but not insincere answer about all the ways the plan was fucked, which was sufficient to scratch Topical And Impersonal Icebreaker off the list, so that Quentin could move along to saying whatever he’d left his post-coital girlfriend to actually come out here and say.

 

He took his time, all the same.

 

“Would you tell me a bedtime story?” he finally asked quietly, with heavy-lidded eyes, still staring at the television.

 

Eliot’s heart throbbed. _Are you asking because you miss me?_ Eliot wanted to ask. _Or just because you’re still not okay and I make you feel better?_

 

And also: _Is this what being brave means? That I don’t ask, and I just keep opening my heart to you, because I fucked up and didn’t choose you, and she had already given you the words you needed by the time I got free of the Monster that hurt you that you still won’t talk about?_

 

And: _Does it mean I never point out that you never chose me, either, not really? Not in the ways that mean anything?_

 

“ _Eliot_?” Quentin whispered. So, Eliot spoke.

  
  


3.

 

 _Once upon a time there was a dashing and gloriously handsome king who was terribly stupid, which was why he was named King Stupid. King Stupid ruled beside King Bambi, but King Bambi isn’t part of this particular story, because if she was she would have knocked this bullshit right off a fucking_ month _ago._

 

_There was a fool who served King Stupid, with silly clothes and marginally less ridiculous hair than he once had._

 

A chuckle as Eliot lightly tugged one of the strands in question.

 

 _King Stupid loved the King’s Fool deeply_ \--

 

Brown eyes opened suddenly wide. “ _Eliot_ \--”

 

“Hush. Story time.”

 

_\--but that’s not the point of this story, not really._

 

 _King Stupid grew up on a shitty farm with shitty people that made a cupboard under the stairs look like a fucking dream. He wasn’t a king yet, then, but he was most_ definitely _a queen, and everyone knew that he was different and they hated him for it. And when he grew up, he proved them all right, because he_ was _different. He was_ the chosen one _. Like, actually chosen. There was a whole test with a knife and frankly more blood than was necessary, and yup-- no denying it. It was him. So let it be written, so let it be said._

 

A pause to clear his throat.

 

 _But-- the thing is. Even though everyone_ said _he was the chosen one, even though he_ was-- _it didn’t mean anything. Because he was a terrible, naive king who had no fucking clue what to do with all his chosen-ness. And when the people for whom he’d been chosen actually got a chance to pick who they wanted to lead them . . . well. They picked someone much better._

 

“Eliot--”

 

_And it wasn’t just them, either. Back when King Stupid was just Student Stupid, there had been . . . someone. Who said that he chose King Stupid and that he loved him just as he was, even if all he was was a stupid farm boy trying to pretend that he wasn’t. But it turned out that someone was never real._

 

 _And then there was . . . a whole bunch of other ridiculous shit and King Stupid and the King’s Fool ended up on a quest together. And it was-- and one night the King’s Fool kissed King Stupid and it was-- And they didn’t talk that much about it, because that’s part of the whole being stupid thing, but-- then the King’s Fool met someone else and-- polyamory is a real thing, and it was fine, and I don’t regret it, and not just because of Teddy, either, because_ she _was-- but_ Jesus _, Q._ You fell in love with someone else.

 

“--and I was supposed to just-- _trust_ ? That you loved us both equally, when _she_ was your _wife_?”

 

Quentin’s face was stricken. “I didn’t know that you cared about the labels.”  


“ _Fuck_ , Q. I didn’t care about the label; I _cared_ how _you_ labeled it. We were together for fifty years and I _still_ don’t know--”

 

“Oh, fuck _you_ , El.” Quentin’s anguish ignited in a moment. Eliot was used to that, after fifty years of living together. “How many _times_ did I try to get you to actually talk--”

 

Eliot squeezed his eyes shut, but he kept listening.

 

“-- and I _asked_ you to give it another shot. I _chose_ you--”

 

“ _For how fucking long, Q?_ ”

 

Quentin’s eyes went wide. Eliot made himself take a ragged breath in then out, then repeated himself, at half the volume. “You _chose_ me. That day. Honey, I _know_ . But-- I’ve been chosen before, Q. I’ve been _your_ chosen one before.”

 

 _Oh,_ Eliot thought to himself, as he leaned forward to rest his forehead on Q’s shoulder, which was sweat-warm and soft, despite the solid wood he knew was underneath. This _is what bravery means._

 

“I just never seem to stay chosen,” he finished on a whisper.

 

Q didn’t say anything, but Eliot could feel the hurt little noise that he swallowed down, and soon after, the wide palm that came up to cup Eliot’s nape.

 

“You could have given me a _chance_ ,” Quentin said after uncounted seconds passed.

 

“I should have,” Eliot agreed, easy as heartbreak.

 

The silent TV continued to throw flickering lights over the pair as they huddled together, equally muted. And though they didn’t speak another word, they each wondered how it would have gone, how it _would_ go, if they--

 

Just bedtime stories. Ending yet to be determined.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading.


End file.
